


Honey Bee

by MrsWhozeewhatsis (OxfordCommaLover)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dad!Castiel, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Family Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Human!Castiel - Freeform, Louden Swain SPN Writing Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 08:28:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7794634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OxfordCommaLover/pseuds/MrsWhozeewhatsis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is my submission for my Louden Swain SPN Writing Challenge. (For more info on the challenge and to see other submissions, go to http://mrswhozeewhatsis.tumblr.com/Louden-Swain-SPN-Writing-Challenge.) The song I chose is Honey Bee (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iWgbvBRHZI) off of their Sky Alive album. It just screamed Dad!Cas to me!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Honey Bee

**Author's Note:**

> Un-beta'd, so all mistakes are mine. If you find any, please let me know, as I want all mistakes fixed before presenting the final project to Rob, Billy, Mike, and Stephen at ChiCon.

_Cas tries to catch his breath, even though his grace means he doesn’t need to breathe. At the edge of his consciousness, he feels the approaching Leviathan gaining ground while he plans his next flight. Dean is in the direction he’s begun to call “North,” though Purgatory has no such distinctions, and he sometimes suspects that even his angelic sense of direction is no longer true. No matter if he calls it north, south, purple, or nine, that is the direction where Dean is, and therefore the one direction he needs to avoid._

_The Leviathan appears in his peripheral vision, and he takes flight. He just needs to keep flying, and keep resting just long enough to attract the monsters away from his friend. In this endless twilight, that is the only thing that matters. Loneliness doesn’t matter. Exhaustion doesn’t matter. Longings for the Heaven he used to love, for the rare times on Earth when he was relaxed with his friends, or for the smile that his love seemed to save just for him, they don’t matter here. Everything is running; keep the monsters from Dean._

_He lands in a clearing in the midst of a pack of werewolves. Before he can fly away again, one grabs hold of his arm. Striking out, he tries to shake the wolf off of him, but the animal is strong. A hand to his forehead, and the monster falls, eyes burned out. Two more attack from behind, and he fights to free himself._

_“Daddy!” The child’s cry pierces through the wilderness of Purgatory and Cas’s heart races at the sound._

_Gracie!_

_“Daddy, Daddy!!” Panicked cries mobilize Cas, and he uses every ounce of his angelic strength to throw off the wolves, but for every wolf he defeats, two more take its place. His daughter’s cries get louder and more insistent, and he fights to free himself and find her, in spite of the ocean of monsters that hold him down._

Cas wakes with a start, his heart racing, a cold sweat covering his skin, the sound of his daughter’s cries echoing through the bunker’s hallways. The feeling of monsters holding him down slowly passes as he takes in his surroundings. Not Purgatory. Not an angel, anymore. The bunker is safe, and his love is stirring on the other side of the bed.

“Daddy!!” Another heart-rending wail flies down the hallway, and her eyes open to look at him.

“I’ll take care of Gracie, love. Go back to sleep,” Cas says with a quick kiss to her forehead. She smiles and settles back into her pillow. He gets out of bed quickly and walks across the hall to where his child’s screams are loudest. Gracie is sitting on the bed, face so red it’s almost purple, tears streaming down her cheeks as she bawls. Cas sits down on the bed next to her and pulls her into his arms, trying to make the comforting noises her mother had taught him. Gracie wraps herself around him like a koala while she sobs into his neck, and he wonders if his heart will ever be able to take moments like this without breaking. Shushing and rocking and stroking her hair, he pushes his own nightmare into the recesses of his mind so he can focus on the warm bundle of despair in his arms.

Eventually, Gracie’s sobs get quieter, and Cas grabs a tissue to clean her face. He smiles as he puts the tissue at her nose and tells her to blow, loving the adorable scrunched-up face she always makes. He can’t help but to chuckle at her outfit, too. Her mother had gotten her a little tutu the other day, and she refused to take it off for more than bath time. Walking has been replaced by leaping and twirling, every mundane trip across the bunker turning into an elaborate performance, complete with an excessive number of bows at the end. Right now, the tutu is on over top of her pajama pants, slightly squished underneath her shirt. With much difficulty, he pulls his thoughts from the tutu to finish cleaning her up. When her face is clean and dry, her head lands heavily on his shoulder as she looks up at him with her big blue eyes.

“Are you all better, now, honeybee? Ready to go back to sleep?” Cas asks, giving her a kiss on her forehead not unlike the one he gave her mother.

Gracie shakes her head, and her little lower lip pushes out into the cutest pout he’s ever seen. “No, Daddy. Don’t wanna s’eep. Monsters, Daddy.”

Cas frowns. Gracie overheard a conversation with the Winchesters a week ago, and understood just enough, now, to know that monsters were real. Everyone explained that the bunker was safe from all monsters, and that the Winchesters slay monsters all the time, but it didn’t seem to stop the nightmares from coming, anyway. She had woken up every night since the brothers had left for their latest hunt.

He doesn’t have a chance to think of a way to get his child off of the subject of monsters before she changes the subject, herself. “I’m firsty. Can I have a glass of water, please, Daddy?”

Cas smiles at the change in the child’s focus and nods. “Sure, honeybee.”

He carries her into the kitchen, where her favorite “big girl” cup with the lid and straw sits waiting for her. He fills it with water, and she lets go of him long enough to reach both hands out and grasp the cup. While she sucks away happily, her eyes wander around the room, and he wonders what she’s seeing. From the first moment she opened her eyes, she was always looking around the room, like there was a dance going on around her that only she could see. As an infant, with a bottle, then, instead of a cup, her eyes were always engaged up until the very moment she would fall asleep. Cas remembers learning how to prepare formula and warm a bottle, and now she’s drinking out of straws and stealing bites of Dean’s pie. How could one little person go through so many changes so quickly?

Being a father had brought with it so many challenges, few of which Cas could have ever imagined before Gracie’s mother had told him she was pregnant. Suddenly, his world was filled with diapers and stuffed toys and books about dogs named Spot and Clifford. He vaguely remembers a time when he didn’t know the words to “Itsy Bitsy Spider,” but he simply can’t imagine what filled his days before Gracie came along. His life truly began when the doctor put this little, pink, wailing bundle in his arms and said, “Congratulations, Dad, it’s a girl!”

Gracie finishes her water, and waves the empty cup in the air. “All done, Daddy!”

Cas smiles and takes the cup from her hands, leaving it in the sink for the morning. “Ready to go back to bed, Gracie?”

Her little face scrunches up and she shakes her head before letting it flop onto his shoulder. “Geen eggs ‘n ham?” She puts on her best set of puppy eyes, reminding him of a certain shaggy-haired Winchester. So far, no one was immune to her puppy eyes, not even Crowley, who had pledged an oath of fealty and protection to her as long as she stayed out of the family business. It sometimes grated on him how much she loved her “Unca Crowie,” but it was amusing to watch the King of Hell turn into a marshmallow at her very smile. Looking at her now, begging him with her eyes that seemed to inflate the longer she stared, he despaired that she would be completely spoiled.

“All right, little one. ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ it is.”

Cas carries her into the library, taking her to the corner Dean had set up for her so she could “research” like everyone else. He’d outfitted it with a little table and chair for her, as well as a rocking chair for nights like this, all set up next to a small bookcase that Sam had filled with children’s books and comics. Settling into the chair with Gracie, he pulls a blanket from over the back of the chair down to cover them both and grabs the book. Her little curls tickle his arm as she straightens out her tutu and snuggles into his hold, pressing her warm body against him. As expected, her eyes are drooping before he’s halfway finished with the book, and she’s completely asleep by the end. He wonders idly as he puts the book down why anyone would want to eat green eggs or green ham, but decides to just be thankful reading the book works.

Not wanting to disturb her just yet, he rocks gently in the chair and stares at her little face. She looks so different now than she did when she was born. How much longer would he be able to carry and hold her this way? She was growing exponentially, he felt, and he worried about the day when she wouldn’t need him anymore. Someday, she wouldn’t cry for him when she had a nightmare. Someday, she’d meet someone and go off, maybe even get married. She wouldn’t get sucked into being a hunter. She might be a Woman of Letters, much like he was these days, staying safely away from the fights and doing the necessary research while others went out and cleaned out vamp nests. He could accept that, as long as it didn’t happen too soon.

For right now, he just wants to appreciate every moment just like this one: holding his daughter in his arms and being the one she calls out to at night when she’s scared. He knows this can’t last forever, but he’s going to hold on as long as she will let him, hoping she doesn’t take on the world before he’s ready.


End file.
